Empirical Rationalism and Other Oxymora
Posts tagged Employee Satisfaction
Who Owns Employee Engagement?…
Aug 24th
A couple of days ago, I posted about a report that Mollie Lombardi from the Aberdeen Group wrote on employee engagement. Richard commented:
Ultimately, engagement is about feeling involved in the business, and believing in it… The senior leadership and management team have to take a strong lead in creating an engaged workforce. If the management aren’t ‘up for it’, no amount of programs will ever make a jot of difference to the company.
I agree.
As I perused through Richard’s company blog, I came across an interesting post related to this topic. It is unclear who authored the post, but there was an excellent definition of engagement and some interesting insights on the ownership of the engagement initiatives:
Employee engagement is about connecting the hearts and minds of your employees with the values and vision of your company. It’s about getting your employees to feel more connected with your company, to take greater ownership, responsibility, and go a bit further for your customers, not because you ask them to, but because they want to.
In the same way that the financial success of your company is not just the responsibility of your finance director, employee engagement is not solely the responsibility of your HR department. … No amount of HR initiatives or programs will compensate for the words and actions of your managers. That is not to say that your HR department cannot and should not play a vital role in helping your managers create higher levels of engagement with their employees, but ultimately your managers have to take responsibility for engagement.
Mollie also discusses ownership of engagement in her report. According to our data, at 43% of Best-in-Class companies, the CEO/president is the primary champion of engagement. For “all others” (i.e. the combined average and laggard performers), the primary champion is at the HR leadership level (42%).
Bottom line for CxO’s: Employee engagement is not a buzzword that can be delegated; if you believe that engagement is something that could have a demonstrable impact on your business, you have to spearhead the initiative… and get your management team to support your efforts.
You can download a free copy of the report here (available until the end of Sept 2009 – registration required).
Employee Engagement vs. Employee Satisfaction. And the Winner is…
Aug 22nd
Over the past 18 months, employee engagement has emerged as a key theme in Aberdeen’s HCM research. Mollie Lombardi at the Aberdeen Group has recently published an excellent report that not only begins to define this nebulous concept, but also gives concrete steps that managers can begin to take to engage (not just satisfy) their employees. According to Mollie:
Engagement is all about aligning individuals with the mission and priorities of the organization in order to deliver business results…engagement only really matters if it is driving business results. In fact, this is what differentiates employee engagement from employee satisfaction. Satisfaction could indicate that an individual is happy that their paycheck comes in on time, or they appreciate the fact that they have healthcare benefits that protect their family, or that their schedule doesn’t interfere with their passion for kayaking on the weekend. [Satisfaction] doesn’t necessarily reflect any connection with the priorities of the organization.
The interesting thing about this study of 450 companies, 312 of which already have engagement programs in place, is that it begins to tie employee engagement to business results. According to the study, Best-in-Class organizations (i.e. top 20% of performers on key performance indicators) are 23% more likely to use employee engagement programs to address customer needs and expectations and 55% of Best-in-Class of companies report that employee engagement is having a direct impact on revenue and/or profitability.
As a matter of personal interest, I will be exploring this topic a little more over the next few weeks. In the meantime, you can download a free copy of the report here (available until the end of Sept 2009).
